The bumpy season ahead

This week, among other things, we started out weekly Wednesday evening cyclocross practice rides. I've been on the CX bike plenty in the past few weeks, but not on grass. And the ground here is extremely hard right now and that makes for some bumpy riding (hence the post title, get it?). It was cool to do some off road cornering, barrier hoping, etc. Things are starting to roll toward the CX season.
With that in mind I also continued ramping up the intervals this week. Still not over-the-top major stuff, but getting there. Working. Building. You know.
Sunday there was a group riding gravel from Story, like we did a few weeks ago, but I opted to just stay here and ride road form home. I wanted to do this one ride I like, but haven't done this year (that I can remember at least). It goes up Catholic Cemetery Road into Morgan Monroe State Forest from the east. Cath Cem is a really tough climb no matter what, but the road has been seriously degrading over the past couple of years and I don't think it is being maintained any more. So it goes from really gnarly pavement, to gravel, to gravel with chunks out of the sub layer, back to nasty pavement, over and over making it exceptionally difficult. I like it. It was a super nice day and I probably should have ridden more, but I wanted to get home to catch the Moto GP race live from Indianapolis. 

the rest of my afternoon

So I only rode a bit over two hours. It was a totally solid ride though. Good power, etc.
In (more) uninteresting news: I also mowed the yard this week. It's been awhile.This drought is bad news for sure, but I usually have to mow once a week throughout the summer (and could mow more than that), but this summer I've gone 5-7week stretches w/out starting the mower. I dig that. Although my neighbor gives me $20 to mow her yard every time I mow mine so that's quite a bit a scratch I'm missing out on, but whatever. Mowing sucks.
With CX season looming there is one MTB race left that I have been on-the-fence about doing. I am leaning toward doing it at this point. It's less than an hour drive, it's at a trail I've never ridden and surely I can use the racing. I have to admit though: the thought of racing on a course I've never ridden is kind of weird to me. I don't mean this in a bad way, but the DINO series uses the same courses year after year so I know most of them very well; I know the corners, what's around the corners, where the logs are, etc. it will be weird to be a "new" course. But kind of cool too.
So that's how things are looking!